Those Who Favor Fire
by cofax
Summary: Space would be too cold for him.


Title: Those Who Favor Fire   
Author: cofax   
Email: cofax7@yahoo.com   
Distribution: Just tell me, please.   
Spoilers: Infinite Possibilities: Icarus Abides   
Summary: Space would be too cold for him.   
Note: This is the obligatory post-ep for Icarus Abides. Angst within,   
no other warnings apply.   
Beta by Vehemently and Melymbrosia, other notes at end.   
Feedback makes me do the wacky. Send it to: cofax7@yahoo.com   
  
  
Those Who Favor Fire   
By cofax   
September 2001   
  
  
He'd always had so many frelling stories.   
  
Stories about his childhood, growing up in sticky green heat,   
swimming naked at night in phosphorescent surf, recreating with the   
soft-smelling girls of his homeworld.   
  
Stories about his friends; about his family, his myriad pets, his   
ever-broken vehicles, his school, his bizarre country.   
  
Aeryn rolled out of the bed and stretched as she had done upon waking   
ever since she had been in the creche. That is, every time that she   
didn't wake to an alarm that had them racing to Command, naked but   
for their boots. She dug in her pack for clean clothes; there was   
little that wasn't black.   
  
Sometimes, late during the sleep cycle when she was on watch in   
Command, or sleepless on the terrace under the light of strange   
stars, he would tell other stories. Slouched boneless in one of the   
few comfortable chairs, he would pour them both drinks and watch her   
with eyes that had seen so little of the universe, and tell dark   
stories. Stories about wandering souls mourning their own deaths or   
avenging other crimes; stories of heroes punished for good deeds with   
the vengeance of the gods.   
  
She'd challenged him more than once. "Why do you tell these stories,   
Crichton? They're nothing more than the superstitions of a primitive   
people." "Why tell them to *me*," was what she had meant.   
  
"Everyone needs stories, Aeryn. Even a Peacekeeper chick with the   
biggest fucking gun in this end of the galaxy." And he'd smiled, and   
drained his drink. But she'd seen a shadow in his eyes, and realized   
only now, so much later, that he'd needed someone else to hear them.   
Even D'Argo had heard of the Zelbinion, but until Crichton told her   
the story, no one else in a hundred thousand light-years would know   
the story about the king who killed his father and married his   
mother.   
  
She pulled the black vest on over the white shirt. It would have to   
do: he'd told her more than once that his own people wore black for   
mourning, but that other humans sometimes wore white. So she would   
wear both. He'd approve, but then he had never really cared what she   
wore, except when she wore nothing at all.   
  
She cut off that thought and strode across the chamber to braid her   
hair, bootheels tapping arrhythmically. They would let him go in an   
arn. There had been less argument from Crais about her plan than she   
had expected. While Crais had, reluctantly, grown to respect him,   
Crichton hadn't been a Peacekeeper, so there was no need to comply   
with Peacekeeper tradition. And space would be too cold for him.   
  
Near the end, before she knew it was the end -- although how could   
she *not* have known, the most she had ever expected was an arn here   
and there -- near the end, he had lain awake beside her and talked   
about death.   
  
Not *his* death: he'd never really believed in it, even after he'd   
died the first few times. What he talked about was how humans   
believed some people were born to die in one way only. Some were born   
to 'hang' -- and she'd wondered aloud how such an execution technique   
would work on a Pitrek, with its surgically hardened exoskeleton, and   
this had naturally led to a wrestling match, and then -- then to   
things she couldn't bear to linger on. She was a Peacekeeper, trained   
to death, but some things were beyond her strength. This she had   
learned from him as well.   
  
Others were born to drown, and she let him see her shudder as he told   
the story of the vessel hunting a leviathan of the seas of his own   
world. And then, as the arns dwindled to the waking cycle, and her   
eyelids drooped, he talked about fire, about how a person's death was   
often thought to match his life. "Better to burn out than to fade   
away," he whispered against her ear, and hummed a snatch of music.   
No, never the cold of space for him.   
  
"Officer Sun." Crais' voice came over the comm, an unexpected but   
welcome formality.   
  
"I'm ready," she said, and picked up the bag from the bed. She had   
stuffed the clothes inside it yesterday, her eyes blind with rage.   
She couldn't destroy them as she wished: it had been hard for him to   
find enough to wear lately, and the Human on Moya, should the two   
crews ever meet up again, would need them. She left the chamber   
without a glance at her reflection. It wasn't something that mattered   
anymore.   
  
They gathered in the docking bay: Crais, Stark, and Rygel. It was   
hardly a fitting farewell, and she missed Zhaan and D'Argo   
desperately for a moment. Crais said a few words; she didn't hear   
them. When he was done, Aeryn handed the Human's bag to Stark: she   
didn't want it with her. Then she climbed into the cabin of the   
transport pod. Crais stepped forward, but Stark held him back. She   
met the Banik's eyes briefly then turned her attention to the   
controls.   
  
She barely noticed the others leave the airlock and the outer doors   
begin to open; all her attention was focused on her cargo. He had   
never said what he expected as his own death; probably he had hoped   
to die in bed, surrounded by children of his own people. She   
thought, though, that like herself he had stopped looking forward   
some time ago.   
  
Well, he had died in fire after all, the fierce burst of photons as   
deadly to him as flame had ever been to Moya. He had died in fire,   
and he would leave them in fire as well, his body spiraling into the   
gravity well of a middle-aged yellow star.   
  
She freed the well-wrapped bundle from the transport pod's clamps,   
and watched it drift away. Slowly at first, then faster, as her jets   
kept her in place against the star's draw. Only when she could no   
longer see that dark speck against the brilliance did she turn the   
pod away.   
  
Back to Talyn; back, perhaps, to Moya, where someone with the same   
eyes and the same hands would try to tell her stories she already   
knew.  
  
  
***   
END  
  
Notes: first dip into a new ficdom; hope y'all like it.   
  
Many many thanks to Vehemently, who caught my commas and canonical   
inconsistencies; and to Melymbrosia, who proved to me it could be   
done, and who made me justify my choices; and to Nestra, for last-  
minute reassurances. And, always, all my love to Yes Virginia,   
without whom none of this would be possible.  
  
****  
I'm the darkness in your daughter   
I'm the spot beneath the skin   
I'm the scarlet on the pavement   
I am the broken heart within   
  
--- Yes Virginia I am ---   
http://cofax.freeservers.com 


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